


Watch Me Fall Apart

by Teacandles



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Abusive Relationship, M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2017-11-18 11:05:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teacandles/pseuds/Teacandles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't really all that difficult to imagine himself ending up here, tied to a chair and at the mercy of the man wringing those blood-curdling screams from his victim behind the door. After all, Charles had known dangerous men all his life, but none have fascinated or terrified him more than Erik Lehnsherr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for [this prompt](http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/8700.html?thread=20175868#t20175868) over at the kink meme. I'll probably be a bit slow updating this as my time for writing is pretty limited at the moment, and I'm still getting over massive writer's block, but this is a prompt I've wanted to work with for a while now. Tags/warnings will be updated as needed.

Charles was of the firm opinion that he did his best people-watching when drunk. There was something about the hazy blur of alcohol that, in the dulling of his own senses, made everything else seem so much clearer, like adding splashes of color to a once black-and-white painting. And beyond that, it was fun. Drunkenness certainly made weeding the fascinating individuals out of a crowd simpler, and the fleeting slips of control over his ability to pass through a person’s thoughts held a certain excitement to it that he couldn’t quite find anywhere else.

He slid his fingers down the smooth sides of his now empty glass, the skin of his hands cool and slightly damp from the little beads of water that clung to what had been his sixth drink of the night (or was it his seventh?), and he contemplated getting another one. There weren’t a great many patrons in this particular bar tonight, but their thoughts were all thrumming in Charles’s head like a symphony, the harsh melodies of the alcoholic dreading the commute home and the scorned lover blending with the smooth harmonies of friends out for a night on the town into a sound only he could hear.

The normal white noise of the people around him turned into bright specks of color and sound, all clamoring for his attention and growing more and more insistent with each drink. It made him dizzy. Stepping out into town to get back to his flat was going to be a challenge tonight if such a small number of people was having this kind of effect on him. Or maybe that was the alcohol. Probably the alcohol. He couldn’t really be sure at this point, though. Not that it mattered. He had no one waiting for him at home to be worried at his lateness. Charles slid down further into his seat and cast his eyes about the bar, hoping someone might pique his interest.

Over in a corner booth was a group of women celebrating…something. He wasn’t quite sure without digging deeper, but it he was quite certain that it had to do with a man. A wedding perhaps, or a successful hookup. Nothing of much interest there except perhaps for the slow burn of jealousy rising up from the woman at the far left. Maybe he could check on them later; right now, digging up the potential petty drama required too much effort The man sitting at the table near the window was lamenting his love life as he nursed a cheap beer. Boring. Charles shook his head and turned his attention back to his glass, resting his chin atop his outstretched arms. This was getting dull. The patrons last night had been so much more interesting, and really, coming to these bars was starting to become a bad habit. _I should cut back_ , he thought forlornly as he stared into the empty glass in front of him. No point in becoming dependent on the bottle like his mother.

The little bell above the door jingled, cheerily announcing the presence of another patron, someone new. Charles lifted his head and turned his eyes to the door. He felt something rise within him as he watched the man walk up to the bar. The stranger was alone (not unusual), and his appearance was nothing particularly striking—tall, lean, simply but appropriately dressed for the cool weather—but something about him was intriguing, mysterious in a way Charles couldn’t really describe. There was a hard, determined gait to man’s walk that felt oddly menacing as he passed by Charles’s table, and Charles did his best to look absorbed in anything but the stranger who had just walked in, though he snuck in a glance or two as the man walked up to the bar and sat down. The man had kept the brim of his hat pulled low enough over his forehead to obscure his features in shadow as he passed by, and that, if nothing else, aroused Charles’s curiosity. Men who hid their faces usually had something hidden inside their heads, too, and this one practically reeked of danger. Exciting. Well, more exciting than anything else had been this evening.

Charles gave up his pretence of disinterest and stared hard at the stranger as he removed his hat and coat. Charles pulled himself upright in his chair and laid his head in his hand, discretely pressing his middle and index fingers against his temple. He didn’t really need the physical gesture to work his powers anymore, but the gentle pressure helped ground him. It made it easier to focus with a dozen minds pressing in on him at once when his telepathy kept subtly worming its way out of his control, as it was now with the alcohol coursing through his system.

As the man sat down at the bar and ordered his drink, Charles rather clumsily dove into his head, but not enough to catch the man’s attention. Memories not his own played out before Charles’s eyes like a blurry motion picture or a half-remembered dream.

Charles saw the man levitating coins in looping patterns between his long fingers in Swiss hotel rooms and crushing a little silver bell atop a desk. He saw locks clicking shut without a hand or key to touch them, spoons stirring themselves atop stoves, and, somewhere in the very back of his mind, Charles saw the hazy shadow of a metal gate slowly bending to his will. Tucked into the man’s left pocket was a small silver coin, and Charles could feel the gentle weight of it against his thigh as though it were in his own pocket. For such a little thing it seemed to carry a lot of weight. It was heavy with guilt and the sorrow of a wrongful death—the death of someone this man held close to his heart, and the magnetic pull of its nickel core burned like a brand, making his fingers itch.

So. Someone else with this…thing he could only call superpowers. Another mutant just as fascinating, no, more so, than Charles himself. Finally. Charles leaned into his hand with a smile.

_Your abilities are extraordinary, my friend._

The world around him seemed to go silent and still as the tall man abruptly stiffened in his seat. “What did you just say to me?” He turned around to face Charles, his expression unreadable. Fascinating.

But ah, that last thought had been out loud, hadn’t it? Either projected or stated. It didn’t really matter at this point. Charles chuckled lightly to himself at his slip-up. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. “I was simply commenting on your, ah, I suppose you could call it a mutation. It’s incredible.”

“Mutation?” the man huffed out mockingly, and his face split in a bemused smile. “Are you calling me deformed?”

“Oh, no. No, far from it, actually.” Charles waved his hand in the air, mimicking the motion the man had made with the coin Charles had seen in his memories. “Everyone has some form of mutation to them. The color of my eyes, for example, was a mutation once upon a time. But I have to say that your _mutation_ , the things you can do, are incredible, and I don’t know that I could hardly have imagined an individual such as yourself, let alone actually meeting you.” Charles lowered his hand and smiled warmly, but the stranger just shook his head.

“I think you might have had a bit too much to drink.” And the man turned back toward the bar and the beer the bartender had just placed before him with a small shake of his head. He tried to look relaxed, but the tension that rippled through him when at Charles’s words held his back and shoulders tight as he began to nurse his drink.

Charles contemplated the man’s words for a moment, looked down at his own empty glass and laughed. “Yes, I do suppose that I have imbibed a bit more than I should have tonight, but trust me when I say that I’ve never yet met someone with such a gift, let alone control like yours. I imagine navigating the different magnetic fields of even the coins in your pocket must be a challenge, and with the copious amounts of metal we seem to have in everything these days...” He trailed off, lost in thought, fingering the circle of condensation lining the bottom of his glass.

The man froze, and everything about him tightened like a rubber band on the verge of breaking. Tension like that usually meant trouble, but at least Charles had his attention now. The man rose from his seat and casually sauntered over to Charles’s table, sliding into the empty chair beside him and resting his full glass of beer on the table like nothing was wrong, like he and Charles were old friends. His smile was predatory.

“How do you know about that?” The hand he rested on the table was clenched in a tight fist, and Charles kept catching snatches of words in his head, names of the people who could have fed him the information.

Charles lowered his head into his open palm. The giddiness of meeting another mutant, someone like him, was intoxicating, and the swirling rush of this other man’s emotions flooded Charles’s system, blotting out any fear he might have had at the other man’s cool hostility. “You’re not the only one who can do extraordinary things, my friend.” _I happen to have one or two surprises, myself_ , he projected, and he couldn’t help but laugh at Erik’s startled expression.

Erik brushed a hand against his ear, his mouth opening and closing mutely like a fish out of water. “How…how did you do that?”

“I have my ways,” Charles said with a smirk and reached out his hand in greeting. “Charles Xavier.”

Erik’s guard was still up, but he reached forward and grabbed Charles’s hand anyway. “Erik Lehnsherr.” Even though a well-used pseudonym had risen to the forefront of his mind, his real name slipped through his lips instead. Interesting. He studied Charles’s face, trying to find some hint of deception there. After apparently finding nothing, he cleared his throat and loosened his grip on Charles’s hand. “So you’re a, ah, you said mutant as well, then?”

“Oh yes,” Charles replied brightly. “And I can do so much more than just talk to you, like…” he waved his hand near his head to show his meaning before sloppily dropping it onto the table. It was hard to find the right words for his abilities, harder still now that his head was spinning. Charles then grinned, leaned forward conspiratorially toward his companion and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “You see, one of the many spectacular things about my mutation is that I can read your mind.”

Erik stiffened. A mind reader. If this was true, then Erik finally wasn’t alone in this whole superhuman theater anymore, but the man could potentially pick out all of the secrets from his head. 

Erik’s thoughts were racing a mile a minute through Charles’s head. _He has to be Schmidt’s. This meeting alone had the man’s dirty fingerprints all over it. Of course Schmidt would send you something like this with the impressive trail of dead you’ve been leaving behind. It’s not exactly like you’ve been subtle, and now Schmidt is sending a message. You got cocky and let your guard down. Trusting, you’re too trusting, Erik._ Charles watched as Erik swallowed and swept his eyes over him, his thoughts a blur of emotion bordering on panic, even though his face remained impassive. _Soft, probably an intellectual of some sort, well-dressed, if a bit casual and rumpled from sitting too long in this bar, and well on his way to becoming stumbling drunk. Might be there already. Or it might be a trick. He certainly doesn’t look like a threat, but then again, neither did Erik when he’d first become a weapon._

“A mind reader,” he said aloud, flat and toneless, nothing belying the anxiety that boiled under the surface.

“I prefer telepath, but yes.” Charles loosened the cuffs of his shirt. It was still too warm in here and Erik’s drink was looking more and more tempting by the minute. He should order something else.

“If you can really tell what’s in a man’s head, then what do you know about me?” His voice was deadly calm under his half-hearted smile, and Charles could hear the threat threaded through the words.

“You want me to read you?” Charles drew back hesitantly. “Are you sure?” People didn’t just offer themselves up to this sort of invasion of privacy. What was the man playing at?

Erik lifted his beer to his lips without a word, never once taking his eyes off Charles. A yes, then. Charles leaned forward into his hand and pressed his fingers against his temple, drowning out the static of the rest of the bar until it seemed like he and Erik were the only men alive, and he dove in.

Beneath the typical hazy surface thoughts—the sensation of the chill of the beer against his hand and lips, the skepticism at Charles’s ability, the anxiety of giving himself away should Charles prove not to be a fraud—most of Erik’s thoughts were sharp and focused on a singular purpose: revenge. Charles glanced through the bloody deaths of a score of men, all of them those who had followed the Nazi regime before the war. None important enough to recall much detail about except for their connection to a man named Schmidt, a dark figure that loomed over every one of Erik’s memories. Charles let his focus drop for just a second, and he saw the dark, vaguely blurry numbers tattooed onto Erik’s forearm. It all made sense now. He drew back, letting his fingers slip down over his face as he came back into himself, away from Erik’s mind. He didn’t know what to say to that.

Erik was smiling now, the full expanse of his teeth bright and predatory in the dim light of the bar. He reached forward and grabbed Charles’s wrist, pinning his hand to the table by his watch. Oh, yes, he most definitely thought Charles was an underling of this Schmidt character, just like all the rest of the dead men floating through his memory. That certainly explained the hostility.

“I’ll ask again,” Erik said, deadly calm. “What do you know about me?”

“If you could loosen your grip fro a moment, please. It’s starting to—”

“What do you know about me.” It wasn’t even a question this time. It was most definitely a threat.

Charles rose up in his seat, his humor and the buzz of the alcohol now fading away into the background. His eyes locked with Erik’s, and he said, his voice deadly calm, “Everything.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been almost a year since I started this (how embarrassing), but here's more. The numbers on Erik's arm are from the film. Logically, they don't make sense for the time he would have been thrown into the camps, but whatever, comics. Hopefully my next update will be much faster than this.

Silence fell over them like a blanket, and for a moment Charles wondered if he was going to have to telepathically influence Erik into letting him go. His first meeting with another one of his kind, another person with abilities just as, if not more, extraordinary than his own, was not at all going the way he’d pictured it. Then again, he hadn’t exactly planned on being drunk when it finally happened either. Perfect first impression, that. Suddenly, as though _Erik_ had heard _Charles’s_ thoughts, he loosened his hold on Charles’s wrist and leaned back in his chair, his hand returning to the glass of beer before him.

“Well then, since we never properly introduced ourselves, aside from our rather uninformative names, I suppose we should get that over with. You already know _everything_ about me, so let’s be fair and start with you. Tell me, Charles Xavier, who are you?”

Charles cleared his throat, trying to ease away some of the tightness that had built up there during their stare-down. “I’m a telepath, which you already know, and I have been for as long as I can remember. It was awfully frustrating as a child, convincing everyone I was sane. People don’t take kindly to anyone saying they can hear what they’re thinking; I’ve been threatened with the asylum more than once, but, um, you probably don’t care about that. Right. I’m a student at Oxford University, currently studying to get my PhD in genetics, though biophysics as also something I’ve already—”

“Genetics?” Erik looked at him over the rim of his glass, and Charles nodded.

“It’s a fascinating field of study, and one that I believe might eventually explain why I, pardon me, why _we_ ,” he smiled softly to himself, “are the way we are.”

Erik narrowed his eyes. “You mean our abilities. Our powers, if you will.”

“Yes.”

Erik went quiet for a moment, seemingly more interested in his beer than his table companion, but Charles knew better. “Tell me, Charles, do you have any connections to Klaus Schmidt?”

“No.

“How about Victor Travert?”

Charles shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

“Albert Álvarez?”

Charles shook his head again.

“And Sebastian Shaw? Does that name ring a bell?” Erik was leaning over now, openly gauging Charles’s reaction.

“No, but if you’re looking for someone, I might be able to help you find them. These men, are they like us, too? Men with…abilities?”

Erik flung himself back into his seat with a laugh. “These men, as you say, are all one and the same, one man, and I would not deign to place myself in any category that includes vermin like him and the men in his company.”

Charles glanced down at the numbers on Erik’s arm, slightly more hidden now that his sleeve had rolled down a bit. The ink was dark blue, once black, and a bit blurred, but there was no mistaking what it was. 214782. Charles had known the numbers were there from his brief traipse through Erik’s memories, but actually seeing them with his own eyes was unsettling. He knew the stories, had read the reports. He had even come across a person or two like Erik in his sporadic trips to the continent. The passing glances at their surface thoughts, vague notions of trains and camps and suffering so terrible there were no words to describe it, were nothing like diving into Erik’s head. “Nazis,” he murmured quietly under his breath before turning back to look Erik in the eye. “You’re hunting Nazis.”

Erik nodded, calmly, slowly, as he pressed his drink to his lips.

Charles went silent for a moment, building his resolve. “I think…I think I can still help. With that.” Charles nodded slightly then, more to assure himself than anything else. The room was beginning to spin again, and a slight buzzing noise was creeping into the back of his head. He looked up from his hands and stared Erik dead in the eye. He had finally found someone else, someone special, like him, and he wasn’t going to let this chance pass him by. “I can find them for you.”

Erik’s face was like stone as he carefully placed his glass back down on the table. “How do I know I can trust you?”

Charles swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. The buzzing in his head was growing louder, but he kept his expression calm and still, emotionless. It was hard. The alcohol pounding through his system and his conversation with Erik were making him dizzy. “You don’t. But then…” Charles paused, hoping he didn’t sound as hesitant to Erik as he did to himself, “how do I know I can trust you?” Something was building behind his eyes, a pounding rush of anticipation and something else that he couldn’t quite place. Lehnsherr only smiled.

“I thought you were the mind reader.”

“That doesn’t mean I trust you.”

“Oh?” Erik leaned forward on his folded arms. “Not even when you know _everything_ about a man?”

Charles swallowed again. “No, not even then. And that…I was bluffing a bit.” His face flushed even redder than it already was, and he looked down at the table. “There are rules, boundaries I set for myself when it comes to the mind reading thing. I wasn’t lying, but…I know _almost_ everything. That’s how I know about the Nazis. I didn’t really check why. I just know what you’re doing and,” he grimaced a bit, “ah, a bit about how. Besides all that, how can I ever expect someone to trust me when I can’t even give them the faintest illusion of privacy?”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true.” Erik drained the last of his beer and rose to his feet. Charles clumsily stood to match his newfound companion. The man seemed so much taller than before, now that the two of them were so close. Charles swallowed, trying to calm the buzzing in his head. The murmurs of the other patrons’ thoughts had faded into white noise, and his mind was full of Erik, his quest for revenge, his quiet amusement at the man before him, his apprehension at the coincidence of meeting another person with superhuman abilities.

“Well, Mr. Xavier—”

“Charles. Please, just Charles. Mr. Xavier was my father,” he said with a sad sort of smile.

“Charles, then. Let’s see just what you’re capable of.”

\---

Charles didn’t remember much about stumbling out of the bar, but the cold blast of air that hit his face as he and his companion walked out into the street brought him a little clarity. There was a hand latched to his elbow, locking him in a hard grip while keeping him on his feet.

“You can let go of me, Erik,” he grumbled up at the man beside him. “I’m perfectly capable of walking on my own.” All right, so perhaps that wasn’t entirely true, but anything to get the other man to let go would suffice. It was embarrassing getting dragged all over creation like an invalid.

Erik’s hold didn’t lessen. He kept walking, pulling Charles along. Charles sighed, resigned himself to the dragging, and blearily watched the streetlights pass them by. “Could you at least tell me where we’re headed?”

“My hotel room.”

Charles smiled sardonically. “While I have no qualms about putting out on the first date, couldn’t you at least have bought me a drink first?”

Erik snorted. “I don’t need to get my partners drunk for sex, and even if I did, you had done well enough on your own before I even walked into that bar. And I probably would have chosen a more discreet man to fuck if I had felt up to getting arrested tonight.” He gave a sharp tug on Charles’s arm, causing him to stumble forward. Charles scowled up at Erik and tried to shake him off again to no avail.

“I could just make you forget about this whole thing,” he threatened. “Make it so we never met.”

“You could, but you won’t.” Erik dragged him along with an almost terrifying purpose to his steps. “I know men like you, Charles. You have more curiosity than common sense, and that need to unravel my secrets while following whatever supposed silly little rules you have about keeping people’s thoughts private would keep you following me even if I let you go.”

Charles bristled. “Then why don’t you?”

“I doubt you can walk very well on your own at the moment.”

Charles was about to retort when he fell forward into the hard plane of Erik’s back. “What—”

“We’re here.” Erik tugged him up the steps and pushed the door open. “I’m on the fourth floor. Think you can make it that far?”

The thought of more stairs made Charles’s legs go a bit wobbly, but he did his best to hide it from his companion. He was drunk, not helpless. “I’m fine.”

Erik smiled in full, predatory and sinister as he finally released his hold on Charles’s arm, and Charles swore he could see every single one of the man’s teeth. “Good.”

The trek up the stairs passed much faster than Charles had anticipated for how unsteady he felt on his feet. Erik’s back was an almost comforting sight in front of him, keeping him from looking down and causing him to miss his footing. They reached room 419, and Erik stopped to look at him, his face at hard as stone.

“Are you sure you want to help me? If you can do what you say, then I need your full cooperation. This is your last chance to back out.”

“I…” Charles felt his heart jump up into his throat. Did he want to help this man? Put everything aside to what, hunt Nazis? He swallowed, and his eyes trailed down to Erik’s forearm where he knew the numbers were hidden. This man was hurting, out for revenge. And he…well, he was like Charles. He had superhuman abilities, could do things no one else could. Charles might never have another chance to meet someone who could—he turned his gaze back up to match Erik’s. “I’m sure.” He couldn’t let this man get away, no matter how disastrous this might turn out. He needed to know. He needed to know that there were other people out there who could do such extraordinary things. That he hadn’t somehow dreamed Erik up from the bottom of a bottle.

Erik nodded and opened the door without even bothering to pull out his key, and the two of them stepped inside the empty room. Erik went about turning on the lights, leaving Charles standing dumbly in the doorway.

“You didn’t lock…?” Charles trailed off as the door closed behind him, and he could hear the tumblers click down into their slots as the door chain rose from where it hung to slide into place. Erik never once moved from where he was fiddling with the bedside lamp. A small display of his powers. Effortlessly moving these things without so much as a touch. A light smile graced Charles’s face. “Impressive.”

Charles took in the room as the lights came to life and balked at the sight of the wall facing the bed. Erik had tacked up a board of sorts with a large world map at its center, photographs, names and descriptions, drawings all stuck to it with tape and pushpins. The colorful little pins were scattered across the paper like ants, the yellow ones connected to one another by a line of red string, ending in a pencil drawing of a mustachioed man Charles had never seen before. A list of names hung next to the board, and several of them near the bottom had been carefully crossed off in red ink. More photographs hung beside that in a haphazard sort of stack, the faces all neatly covered by a large red X. Good god, he had stepped into the den of a serial killer.

Erik turned to him and spread his arms wide. “Welcome home, Charles.” He nodded toward the names. “The ones at the top are possibly hiding out somewhere in London or the surrounding area. Any of those sound familiar?”

Charles hesitantly stepped toward the wall to examine the list. None of them looked familiar. None of them except—

“Wait.” He pressed his finger to the sixth name down. “I know this man. He runs an chemist’s shop in the city. His nephew is in one of my classes. I would never have thought—”

Erik was behind him in a flash, snatching the list off the wall before Charles could finish his sentence. He stared hard at the name as though trying to place a face with the letters on the page.

“Do you think you can find your way back here?” Erik said without looking up from the list. He walked over to the nightstand and pulled out a pen.

“What?”

“Tomorrow. Do you think you can find your way back here? Or do you need to stay here for the night and sleep off whatever it was you drank back at the bar?”

“I…” Charles cast his eyes around the room again. There was little doubt in his mind that Erik could find him if he decided to run. He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. _Oh, Charles, what have you gotten yourself into this time?_ “I think I’m okay,” he said instead, opening his eyes to look back at his companion. “When should I meet you?”

“When does the chemist’s close?”

“I don’t know. Seven, maybe eight?”

“We’ll need time to get to the city,” Erik mumbled under his breath before turning his attention back to Charles. “Be here no later than six. In front of the building. Bring a spare set of clothes and be ready to gather some information for me.”

Charles simply nodded, his heart beating a mile a minute.

\---

This was insane. Completely and utterly, insane.

Charles looked down at his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. The sun was sinking low behind the skyline of the city, washing the buildings in shades of blue and grey as the streetlights flickered to life around him.

Six o’clock, he’d said. No later than six o’clock. Charles looked down at his watch again and sighed, falling back against the brick exterior of the hotel. He had twelve minutes to go before Erik was late. He felt so foolish standing out here alone, an overnight bag slung over his shoulder.

He fingered the rough edges of the old notebook in his hand, contemplating scratching out a poor attempt at rendering one of the trees across the street in ink to pass the time. But Charles had never been very good at art. His mind flashed back to the drawings pinned to the map in Erik’s room, and he closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath to calm himself. This was insane. What was he doing here? Waiting outside in the brisk November chill for a madman, that’s what.

A madman who could move pocket change and turn the tumblers of a lock without touching them. A madman who could probably feel the magnetic pull of the earth under his feet as easily as he breathed air. A man that made Charles feel like finally, _finally_ , he wasn’t alone in his crazy super powered fantasy of a life. No, he had to see this through to the end.

Charles swallowed, remembering the smooth line of Erik’s long fingers as they danced across his memory, clutching a glass at the bar, turning on a lamp. They were obviously strong hands, but elegant. Like a pianist’s. But they were also the hands of a murderer; he could never forget that. The wool of his coat did little to fight against the chill that ran down his spine. Erik was most definitely a killer. Hell, Charles had seen it in blurry detail as he’d rifled through Erik’s memories. Shadowy sprays of blood stained the walls and floors of places Charles couldn’t name as he sifted through memories not his own, and he sunk lower against the wall, fearing his knees might give out on him.

They were going to kill a man tonight, he was sure of it.

“Charles.”

His head snapped up at the sound of his name, and he jerked away from the wall. There was Erik, tall and dangerous and just as alluring as he’d been the night before, a small, reddish suitcase held tight in one hand. Charles swallowed again and held up his notebook. Erik eyed it with suspicion.

“I brought this. You said that I needed to be ready. To, ah, gather information.”

“Your memory is insufficient?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then you don’t need it.”

“But—”

“Come on. We’re going to miss our ride into the city if you continue to waste time.” And he was off, leaving Charles to jog after him like a dog.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've revamped the previous two chapters so they're a little less terrible. Well, hopefully less terrible.

The train ride into London was perhaps one of the most awkward experiences of Charles’s life. He sat across from Erik in complete silence, the man staring at him as though Charles may bolt at any second.

“I’m not going anywhere, Erik,” he’d tried to joke about a quarter hour in. “Where could I run to that you couldn’t find me anyway?”

Erik said nothing. He just continued to stare uncomfortably at Charles until Charles squirmed in his seat and had to turn his eyes toward the window. Awkward and unnerving. Just the sort of mood he wanted to reassure himself when he was on a mission to kill a man in cold blood. A man who was family to one of his classmates. A man he knew, for god’s sake, albeit not very well at all. But he’d been to that particular chemist’s before, had seen and talked with the smiling older man behind the counter.

Oh, god, this was insane.

He shrunk down into his seat and clutched the notebook in his hands tight against his chest, once again glad that he hadn’t taken Erik’s advice and dumped it. Useless it might be to their plans, but it was certainly helpful in keeping Charles from hyperventilating and passing out on the floor. He figured that fainting in front of Lehnsherr constitute as a bad thing.

They were almost to the station when Erik finally said a word to him. “Keep your wits about you, Charles. You have no idea what men like this are capable of.”

Actually, Charles did have an idea. He had seen it in Erik’s head, after all. But…Charles swallowed. It was hard to think about the blood, the torture, the starvation and mix it with the vague memories of his classmate’s uncle. He probably hadn’t picked up on this dirty little secret before thanks to his hang-ups on mental privacy. Perhaps that was how evil kept itself going in the world: it hid out behind kind faces, inane surface thoughts and shop counters.

“I will,” he promised, his voice soft and unsure before he straightened and cleared his throat. “Sorry. Yes, I will. Do you—what do you want me to do?”

Erik leaned forward in his seat to rest his elbows on his knees. “I told you; I need you to gather information for me, information that I’m sure will need some outside assistance to get. But first, we need to find a hotel.”

That threw Charles off guard. “A hotel? Whatever for?”

“We need somewhere to go when the job is done.”

“Oh. Right.” Charles had been under the assumption that they would be headed home after all this was done, but that wasn’t really feasible if he thought about it. And now that he thought about it, Erik had asked him to pack an extra set of clothes, which Charles had stuffed into the bag sitting in the compartment above their heads right alongside Erik’s suitcase. Right. A hotel it was.

“Will we be sharing a room?”

“It’s easier. Cheaper.”

He eyed Erik once more. The man was still attractive, dangerously so, if Charles bothered to admit it to himself. And if it weren’t for this whole murder business, he’d probably have already risked arrest for making a move on the man in public. But…his mind flashed back to the blood and horrors he’d seen in Erik’s head last night and pulled back a bit. Dangerous. Far too dangerous to even dare to try, even if they would be sharing a room for the night.

“Right. Um, so we get a hotel. What next?”

“We make sure the man is at the shop. If he is, this will be much simpler. If he’s not, then we move on to plan B, which is bit messier, but doable.”

Charles swallowed. “Messier?”

Erik only grinned at him, showing far too many teeth to be comforting, and continued on like nothing was wrong. “If the man is there, then we wait for the place to close. Not too late, lest he leave to go home, but late enough for him to close up shop. Then, I get us in, you get the information we need, and I’ll do the rest. You won’t have to get your pretty hands dirty at all.”

Charles’s face lit up in a flush, and he gripped his notebook even tighter. The man was insulting him.

“I may not have done anything like this before, but I’m no delicate flower, Erik. I said I was going to do this, didn’t I?”

Erik settled back into his seat and scanned his eyes over Charles again before nodding. “You did.”

“Then trust me to do my part.”

\---

Time seemed to crawl by as Charles and Erik staked out the chemist’s shop. Charles nervously checked his watch, trying in vain to ignore the mad pounding of his heart.

“Stop fidgeting,” Erik growled. “You’re going to make a scene.”

 _I can’t help it._ Charles didn’t trust himself not to shout if he opened his mouth. Then he truly would cause a scene. _I’m nervous._

Erik looked skyward, an aggravated sigh leaving his lips. After a tense moment’s silence, he opened his mouth and asked, his voice little more than a whisper, “Does that work both ways?”

_What?_

“Your…” Erik screwed up his face in search of the word before finally giving up and motioning toward his head. “That thing that you’re doing now. Talking to me in my head. Does it work both ways?”

Charles straightened his jacket and checked the time once more. Only a few minutes left. Talking about his telepathy would make for a good distraction. “I suppose it might. I’ve never tried.” _There’s never been anyone to try it on before._ “I guess you would have to think about me, or rather, _to_ me, if that makes sense. No, it doesn’t really make sense,” he muttered half to himself.

“How do you send your thoughts to me and no one else?” Erik still wasn’t looking at him, watching the cloudy sky overhead like he was looking for signs of rain. Bastard looked far too comfortable.

“I don’t know. I just do. It’s natural. Just—try thinking something at me, words or a picture. Something.”

_**Can you hear me?** _

Charles winced and rubbed at his ear. “Yes, I suppose that would do the trick. Just tone it down a bit. You’re shouting.” 

“Sorry.” _How is this?_

_Perfect._

Erik grinned, still not looking at Charles. _This could prove useful in the future._

Charles didn’t want to ask how. Instead he just shuffled his feet and fought the urge to glance down at his watch again.

“It’s time.”

“What?”

Erik tilted his head in the direction of the shop, where the lights were going out and the little sign on the door had been flipped to ‘Closed.’ Charles swallowed around the lump in his throat. Right. It was time. Erik strode past him at a brisk pace, hands stuffed far into the pockets of his jacket. Charles jogged along, not quite sure what he was supposed to do.

They approached the building, and Erik strode in through the door like it hadn’t been locked just a minute ago. A tiny bell hanging on the doorframe announced their presence with a tinny jingle. Charles swallowed hard around the lump in his throat as footsteps approached them from the back room.

“I’m sorry, but we’re closed now. Could've sworn I locked that door.”

The man was just as Charles remembered: tallish, with thin, wire frame glasses perched atop his nose, and broad shoulders that were permanently hunched forward, like a child whose mother had caught them doing something they shouldn’t. His words were bitten off a bit to hide the slight accent.

“I’m sorry,” Erik replied smoothly. “We just had a quick question that we hoped you could answer for us.”

_Charles._

Charles stiffened at the sound of his name and glanced over at Erik, who was casually leaning up against the counter now. _Is this the man I’m looking for?_

Charles raised his hand to his temple and pressed his fingers down against the skin. It was a bad habit, an obvious tell, but he needed it now as he dove into the mind of the man before him, digging deeper and deeper until…

Oh god.

_Yes._

Charles’s stomach flipped over itself, and his mouth suddenly felt very dry. He dimly heard Erik talking in the background, but he couldn’t stop staring at the man behind the counter. All this time…all this time he had been hiding such terrible things deep inside his head. How on earth had he missed it before?

He was dimly aware of Erik pulling back his sleeve to show the brand of his suffering, and everything suddenly went very quiet and still.

“I’ve changed. I’m not the man who I was back then, I swear.”

“Tell that to my father, my sister. Tell that to my mother and all of her people who never got the chance to redeem themselves in your eyes,” Erik hissed.

“I was following orders.”

“That’s no excuse.” _Charles, I need you to search him. Find out anything you can about Klaus Schmidt._

Charles snapped out of his trance and focused on the thread that held that name. It jumped out at him here and there, finally landing on—

“Switzerland. Geneva. He doesn’t know where Schmidt is, but he keeps in contact with someone who does, and that man is in Geneva.”

The words had barely left Charles’s mouth when Erik made his move. He jumped over the counter and wrapped his arm around the man’s hunched shoulders. His free hand tangled itself into the thinning hair atop the man’s head, exposing his neck to the open air. A switchblade unfolded itself from the recesses of Erik’s pocket, and he hissed something Charles couldn’t hear into the man’s ear.

It was amazing how easily skin could split open and just how much blood the human body could hold. Arterial blood has a rhythm to its flow, a beat that pulses in time with the heart. When the pathways are opened, that blood is free to go wherever it chooses, and Charles could feel it, hot and heavy, as it sprayed all over his clothes, his face. Oh. His hands were shaking as the body slumped forward onto the ground. The spark of color in his head that was once a life went out like a candle, and Charles felt numb. It was all over quicker than he first imagined, and the feeling was oddly familiar. He had only felt someone die once before, and that was…

“Charles.”

Charles turned toward the voice calling his name. Oh, yes. Erik. He’d nearly forgotten. Charles wanted to say something, but the words died in his throat. Just like the man on the floor. Nothing but a useless, lifeless sack of meat, bleeding out onto the floorboards.

Erik had blood on him. His right shoulder was drenched with it, a macabre painting on a living canvas. Something like remorse was written across Erik’s face as he approached Charles, quiet and tentative, arms outstretched like he was trying to lure in a frightened animal. “Charles, I’m sorry. I never meant to—”

Anything he might have said was lost as Charles surged forward and pulled the man down into a desperate, searing kiss, stealing their breath away as the blood pooled around their feet.


End file.
